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Kayfabe! Timeline: The History of ECW – 1999 as told by Rob Van Dam
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Timeline: The History of ECW – 1999 as told by Rob Van Dam
This winds up being a middle-of-the-road edition of the ECW Timeline series. Once again, KC got themselves a great guest on paper: RVD was a featured player throughout 1999, but he just didn’t bring the goods the way you’d expect him to. It’s not that RVD doesn’t have anything to say, this clocks in as one of the longer (if not the longest, the KC site doesn’t list running times) ECW Timelines, but, he doesn’t have much of substance to say. He tends to veer off on tangents, some of which are pretty good, but, then they work their way back to the original topic and Rob doesn’t have much to say about that. One of the big positives about this series is that RFVideo owns the rights to a lot of ECW Footage, so KC is actually able to show some clips.
This is more or less just a longer version of the 2000 Timeline with Justin Credible. Rob doesn’t have much dirt to dish, because, he was apparently just another one of the boys, and not part of Paul’s inner circle, like Dreamer, Bubba, and Taz. Rob does have some good stories to tell about what a shyster Heyman was. He’d purposely keep the boys waiting as long as possible before he gave out paydays, so that they’d get sick of waiting for him and leave. Then, he’d always have the story of running out of checks. He’d be all promises to Fed Ex it to them overnight, and the boys all knew damn well that Paul wasn’t doing that. Paul would also tell Rob and Sabu about a talent meeting that he was having, but that they didn’t have to be there, and then when someone pointed out that they weren’t there, Paul’s reaction would be “Why aren’t they here?” which would get them heat with the other boys. Rob tells a funny story about working with the Dudleys, he and Bubba would have their own version of playing chicken, where they’d take turns potatoing each other until one of them couldn’t take it anymore and grabbed a headlock.
While Rob seems to be in the dark on a lot of behind the scenes stuff involving ECW, he does bring some very good discussion on other matters. They discuss the deaths of Rick Rude and Louie Spicolli, and how much of a wakeup call it was for Rob, who was taking lots of different drugs at the time, and not even thinking twice. They also talk about the death of Owen Hart, and while Rob doesn’t have much to say about the incident itself, since he never knew Owen, he does talk about how it made the boys start curtailing the risks they were taking. This also veers into Rob talking about some of the crazier things that he’s done, and how he can look back and not believe that he’d done that. He specifically talks about him and Sabu putting Bam Bam Bigelow through a table, and the table breaking at an odd angle and Rob’s eyelid getting cut up. He also talks about how important it was that he learned the basics of wrestling first, and then transitioned to doing all the shit with tables and chairs. Nowadays, people skip the basics and go right for the props, and Rob doesn’t have any respect for those sorts of wrestlers.
But, good stories, and discussions, like that get counterbalanced with a lot of stuff that he has no idea about. One of the more interesting happenings that year was the brief return of Public Enemy to ECW. They did the comeback angle and brawled with the Dudleys in the ECW Arena, and were gone a week later (Note from Mike: According to Bubba it’s because the Dudleys beat the piss out of PE at a house show, when they no-sold 3D). But, Rob doesn’t seem to know anything about it. All he has to say about them is that they were a good fit for ECW. Another topic was Big Dick Dudley leaving ECW because he felt he could have been a major player, and Paul wasn’t giving him the chance to do so. Rob doesn’t really know any specifics, but, he disagrees with Dick, because, by 1999, ECW was different than it was a few years earlier. Speaking of Dicks, Dick Hertz debuted that year, and all Rob has to talk about is how odd censorship can be. There are a million words you can’t say, but, tweaking things slightly makes them OK. He doesn’t seem to know anything about Shane Douglas quitting ECW, and topics like the WWF signing away the ECW Champion Taz and the ECW Tag Champions the Dudleys, aren’t even covered. One of the highlights of 1999 is Rob being TV champion for the whole year, but, the way Rob makes it sound, he had no idea how long he was holding it for.
